A Glass Darkling
by Aubretia Lycania
Summary: One simple event changes a world... Leo never managed to remove the Nightwatcher’s helmet, and lost in labyrinthine streets, he engages in an endless hunt for the vigilante who haunts his dreams. Slash, AU 2007 film.
1. Day in Paradise

By Aubretia Lycania

Description: One simple event changes a world; Leo never managed to remove the Nightwatcher's helmet, and lost in labyrinthine streets, he engages in an endless hunt for the vigilante who haunts his dreams. Slash, AU 2007 film.

Author's Notes: This is a fun bunny Kyt and I thought up one night and that she dared me to do; I'm writing it in the spirit of fun and it's here to be enjoyed. As such, no flames will be accepted. This is Leo/Raph (Nightwatcher) incestuous slash, so be warned. If turtles in leather, riding bikes and swinging chains before hot lovemaking bothers you, please hit the back button—no one will judge you. In addition, this story WILL assume the history of Walking the Line's Interlude chapters as well as the 2007 movie up to the fight on the rooftop, where my story splits. Special thanks to Kyt, whose voracious love of Raph butt kept this bunny alive.

Disclaimer: If I owned these turtles, I would not be living in a co-op next year.

A Glass Darkling

_I'll quit this tomorrow_.

It was his first thought, when Leo awoke, in a cold sweat, late in the morning.

He was never alone.

He could hear Raphael in the room next to him, rustling around in restless sleep. They had both become night owls, Leo sucked out into the darkness when his father sent him, evening after evening, out to "keep an eye on Raphael."

Just like old times.

Except Leo didn't follow orders. Each time he stepped out into the artificial light of another Manhattan, he leapt into action, chasing the vigilante who the TV and Mikey both called "Nightwatcher." He glanced at his clock.

Week four.

It was so strange to jump back into New York time, watches and television blocks and the time it took Mikey to finish a game, after a continuum of sun-rise, sun-set, hot and cold. He had been home for five weeks. He had been chasing Nightwatcher for four.

Leo caught him every night. He let him go equally as often.

Leo tossed, and heard the body in the room beside him go still, as though finally finding a comfortable position. Or quietly listening. He placed his arm against the wall, knowing their beds were pressed right up against each other, with the crumbling line of brick between them. The wall scroll, a poem by Basho that Leo had taken heart in before going on his travels—an ukiyo-e painting he'd attempted a couple years back, tranquil but nothing much to look at. Color without being color, a room subtle and watered-down, sparse. Beside Raphael's, of all people, just as sparse—dark, only a single lamp in a corner that was never on, a trench coat and fedora hung up in one corner like an ominous guard, extra weights beside the bed, an old radio, sais and darts sticking out of the walls at every interval. A room like a torture chamber, shadowy, with that mound of blankets Raph called a bed, and the warning sign on his door.

Leo heard Raph get out of bed; he echoed the move, quietly—listened, as Raph's door creaked open, and his little brother began his trek toward the bathroom. A bolt of blue lightning, Leo pulled his own door open, threw himself out smoothly, and grabbed Raphael inside, closing the aperture and jamming Raph against it abruptly.

"Jesus, Leo—could ya do that _after_ I take a goddamn piss, please?"

"You wanna tell me what I should tell Master Splinter _this_ fine morning, after you got home well past dawn, little brother?"

Raph sighed. "Do ya havta stick yer nose in my business every damn day before we've even had breakfast, man? I mean, it was cute fer a coupla weeks. Now I'm really gettin' bored with it."

Leo grumbled. "I'm the one who takes the heat for failing to keep you in line. Our Winters mission was a fiasco—we're lucky the Foot helped us and we managed to send those monsters back. You ducking out every night and worrying our father doesn't help matters."

Raph chuckled. "It's only bad because even you can't seem to reign me in, and Master Splinter knows it. Not that you try."

Leo sneered. "I didn't take a year-and-a-half pilgrimage to complete my ninja training just so I could come home and baby-sit my sixteen-year-old kid brother every night. If I catch the Nightwatcher, I'll be doing the city some actual good. All you do is probably beat up a punk or two and hang out with Casey—couple of sweet-faced low lives, the pair of you."

Another chuckle. "That's right, bro. Got me pegged, doncha?"

Raphael had stopped bringing up Leo's pilgrimage since that first week—since he had willingly come home, and helped them defeat the Stone Generals. It had been the same night Leo first met the Nightwatcher, and let him escape. He had gone back, night after night, obsessed with changing the vigilante's ways, learning who he was, why he did what he did—who lay beneath the mask. He and Raphael had an implicit understanding—Raphael came back before Splinter woke up to make it seem Leo was forcing him to come home, and was never to tell anyone what Leo was really up to; in exchange, Leonardo let him do his own thing unmolested—provided he kept up his end of the bargain. When Master Splinter saw Raph come in after Leo… well, the game was up.

Ideally, meeting up in the tunnel outside their home worked best. But this seldom actually happened, as perfect as it made things. When they managed it, they both knew the other was home. They both knew they were safe. This deal had its way of becoming the dark glue of a secret between them—they were like twins again, and Leo shuddered at the thought.

"Just don't be late again, Raph—or I'll make you start reporting in on your cell phone near dawn."

Raphael grinned, in a way Leo didn't necessarily like, and pinched his cheek. "Aww, big brother, but I'd interrupt your vigilante-huntin', wouldn't I?"

He wanted to punch that knowing smile right off his sibling's defiant young face. He turned Raphael around, enjoying being allowed to jokingly manhandle a little as their relationship improved, and pressed that grin into the door.

"Go take your piss and ponder some excuse for being out until 5 am, and remember to leave me some toothpaste and hot water, baby brother."

Raph grunted and shouldered him, trying to pull Leo into a headlock, but found himself back-flipped onto the freshly tousled bed. He gazed at the disordered blankets, grinning.

"So this is what your bed looks like without the military tuck. I'd almost forgotten."

Leo bit his tongue, and dive-bombed his brother, causing a strangled _oomph_ beneath him, and chuckled. "You know, I was gonna let you have the bathroom first, but I think you'll benefit from a lesson in patience."

Raphael regained his breath after Leo's plastron swiftly winded him. "Oh, yeah? How ya gonna… stop me?"

"Well, Raph—the way I see it, I have two options. One, I can get there before you, which would take some unnecessary energy that would probably bring Donnie up here to see what's going on, and bring another lecture on your head, or two, I could tie you to the bed, take all the time I like in the bathroom and let you suffer in silence, since I doubt you'd want to be discovered bested by your older brother."

Raphael laughed rather darkly. "True 'nough… though I'm not so sure ya want Master Splinter ta see ya tied me t' yer bed, Leo."

Leo hadn't made a move; he enjoyed having his little brother back, since their secret had helped them improve their relationship significantly. They had only ever gotten along through secrets, by being covertly close, as though they feared anyone knowing they gave two shakes about each other. Leo supposed he would find it funny when he was older. Right now, he loved his brother's laughter, wanted to drink it in and ensnare the moment, a second when they weren't fighting. He had begun to wonder how he could have stayed away for so long, what had happened to make him forget about this.

Raph tried to roll him off and they landed with a loud thump on the floor, bringing sheets with them.

"Look a' this, bro—we could make a fort," Raphael said wryly, gazing at the white light that glowed through clean linen. Leo punched his arm and kicked out to release them from the coil of cloth. Raph was watching him, with a strange expression.

"Hey, uh… Mikey gotta holda some good movies. We could stay in tonight—hang with the bros."

Leo snickered, sitting up, still partially wrapped in his sheets. "_You_, the lone wolf himself, want to stay in? Alright, Raph, no sucking up. What do you really want?"

Raph stared for a minute, obviously grasping for a reasonable answer. "S'not that. Just… I dunno, might be a boring night. Maybe you c'n leave off the Nightwatcher hunt til tomorrow."

Leo frowned, but didn't answer.

Raphael laughed, though he sounded uncomfortable. "What, he expectin' ya 'r somethin'?"

Leo grinned. "He's got a date with the police, one of these days—but not with me, Raphi boy."

"D'ya have t' call me that? It's embarrassin'."

Leo reached down and pulled Raphael up by the edge of his carapace, head-locked him, and commenced with a healthy session of noogying—extra hard for Raph's tough skull. "It's my job to embarrass you—one of the few perks of big brotherdom, after all the hand-holding and nagging and correcting I have to do around here."

'Yeah, whatever," Raph scoffed, then sent a sly look at Leo, which masked hopefulness. "So—you in or out tonight, bro?"

Leo answered before he really studied his brother's face—before he really considered that gleam of hope, that hidden something, a depth of secrets. Leo supposed he liked having secrets with Raph because Raphael was the king of secrets, and it felt somehow special to be included in a few. It felt nice to be on the mental payroll of the lone wolf, the master of mysteries. It always had. But Leo had a date with vigilante hunting, and he wasn't prepared to miss it for a mindless night watching monster movies with his little brothers.

"Maybe another time," Leo said, patting Raph's shell.

An old gleam of hostility slunk back into his brother, who shrugged him off. "Time… right. You have fun with your huntin', bro."

And there it was again—that annoying shine, that glimmer, _I know something you don't know_ that always drove Leo insane as a kid.

Raph slipped off to his morning piss, and Leo started to mentally ready himself for the night.

Another day in paradise.


	2. Chasing a Soul

Since his days off the coast of Portugal, Leo had been a stalker of darkness. He tread a tightrope, painted face swathed in shadows, the performer never glimpsed, above a corrupt world. Aboard the freighter El Marzuq, he had encountered a new understanding of himself—as a warrior, protecting an existence beyond nature or the victims of crimes. He could be, perhaps, a protector of innocence, though he sold his soul himself. As he became this warrior, he became also aware of the wealth of innocence that had taken flight from his life, in small increments. From the turtle god protecting nearly nameless children in the hold of one ship among thousands, to the dark form stalking a V-twin engine, his was a life that had come full circle.

The wind was gentle and carried sirens—the call and the draw of the Nightwatcher, the sure whistle that would bring them together.

_I'll quit this tomorrow._

_Maybe tomorrow I'll believe it._

Leo felt the call and the itch as it etched into his muscles, pulling them taut as rubber bands fraught with a curious electricity, ready to shoot him into the night. The roar of an engine, the figure in the corner of a trained eye, and he was falling through the air. He flung a round of warning shuriken, barely missing the helmet of his prey, close enough that the vigilante would be able to see the number of blades, the designs carved in the simple, shimmering metal. Close enough that death would brush him, and cause him to glance skyward, at the ambient purple lit night, the dim stars, the dark form—a void in modern reality—pressed upon it all and drawing the world in, like a vacuum.

A gleam of light off the visor as the Nightwatcher looked skyward, barely keeping control of the bike after a rapid swerve. He was heading into an alley, barricaded at one end. Leo made another leap from his present fire escape perch, landing at the mouth of the alley just as the vigilante screeched to a halt before the impediment, trapped. Without missing a beat, he had wrapped a leather hand around a ladder up to another fire escape, and Leo, anticipating the move, jumped smoothly in pursuit. Back to the roofs—back where the hunt sought to resolve itself, fish returning to their origins to spawn again. An endless cycle of catch and release, the key understanding lost. Something had not been gained. Something in this vigilante obsessed him, and Leo would discover it.

He remembered his own shadow aboard the El Marzuq, the sound of dripping blood, the warmth rapidly cooling as it beaded off his forearms and drizzled lazily down his legs. Hamato Leonardo, warrior of the innocent. Perhaps there was a soul inside this armor who had not yet killed, had not yet felt the sting and stench of dead blood. He didn't know if he wanted to condemn or save him. In the end, he supposed, he just wanted to see who he was.

Week four. Leo stepped onto the rooftop, where the Nightwatcher had ceased running. A short skirmish as usual, practically a sparring match—one _ninjaken_ for Leo, a single _manriki_ for the vigilante, and either a sword would go flying or the heavy chains would find themselves pinned to the ground under a quivering blade, but it would always be over quick. They matched each other well—all the styles Leo had mastered while away on training were the Nightwatcher's to spin around his fingers. The vigilante was a true street fighter; while a flavor of his original training showed, he seemed unafraid to use anything he'd ever seen, so Leonardo returned in kind.

This time, the Nightwatcher wrapped a chain around Leo's arm and pulled him ten feet forward, taking a firm hold of his wrist; he could feel the hot glow of eyes alighting on him, flame to the wick, from under that dark visor—he squinted to make them out, but no success.

"Any reason why you keep followin' me, punk?" the voice was deep, raspy, a vaguely lower Manhattan accent, like thousands around them—yet there was something off about it, something foreign and contrived. It was not his natural accent, though he spoke it easily enough. He had trained his voice—it was carefully formulated under a mask of vagabond colloquialism, deep planning beneath a sheen of uncaring.

Until now they had refrained from conversation—the Nightwatcher taunted Leo, and Leo lectured back. It remained a one-sided dialogue, in voice and action, one running and the other heavy in pursuit. The vigilante never brought Leo to him, never invited his presence, yet when Leo broke into the range of their weapons, went inside that inner sanctum where _manriki_ lose their usefulness and felt the vigilante itch, uncomfortable with the new borders, he would allow a smile. He was not smiling now—he had not broken the barrier, the Nightwatcher had pulled him inside of it; he was no longer in control of the situation.

Leo yanked his wrist, but did not step away. "I'm not a punk. My name is Leonardo and I've been trying to"—

"I _know_ what you've been tryin' to do, punk, but that don't mean I'm gonna do it," Nightwatcher responded, giving Leo another chance to study that strange voice, echoing over cold metal that made it ring, the warbles of a cyborg. "You're persistent, I'll give yeh that. But I'm getting' bored with this, and I got work t' do."

Leo stopped the vigilante as he attempted to move away, hand to armored wrist; now _he _was in control of the borders, and the power sent light through his veins.

"Listen, why don't we just talk about this? It's not like I don't know where you're coming from—I've done my share of vigilante-work and believe me, it's not worth it. Most humans… most people… just aren't worth it anymore. It's not worth your soul."

"What the hell you know about my soul?" the blank mask queried, voice raspier—and there it was, another accent below the first—someone who had been raised with more than one language, who had several tongues at his disposal, who was accustomed to donning the cloak of a New York accent to appear stupid or tough or simple. "If my city ain't worth it, my neighborhoods an' the place my family lives—then who the hell _is_ worth it, huh?"

_My family_.

That night Leo let the Nightwatcher go again—faked a knock-out and lay prone on the rooftop and listened to the V-twin engines rumbled away, out of his life again.

When he trudged inside the den, he found that Raphael had made it back before him, if he'd ever even left—bathed by the blue glow of the television, head in one hand against the arm of the couch, staring at a blank screen. The room pulsated with expectations and disappointment.

_I'll quit this tomorrow._

_Why the hell did I even come home?_

_What good am I doing him?_

"Raph?"

Dim brown eyes turning to look at him, unimpressed, bored, but not angry. Raph didn't expect anything out of him, and that blankness, the absence of happiness or object, stabbed Leo as anger and hatred never could. He saw his brother's naked soul for a glimmer of an instant. All Raphael expected of him was that he would leave again—whether it was for the jungle or the concrete chaos above them, day after day or night after night, he expected the abandonment, and was ready to show he had prepared himself for it, that he wouldn't cry or send letters or beg him not to leave. A studied language, like an accent masking another…

"Mikey got _The Boondock Saints_. Wanna watch?" Raph asked, without letting Leo see his eyes, or the hope.

"I… I should go to bed. You too. It's late," Leo stuttered, allowing the comfortable place of older brother to carry him over the drafts of Raph's endless vertigo.

Sarcasm leaked onto Raphael's face in profile, darting over his skin bitterly. "You gonna tuck me in, big brother?"

Leo blinked away an odd sting, and didn't respond; instead he trod into the kitchen, and started the kettle. Tea was a ritual—like cooking or doing dishes or cleaning the dojo or breathing exercises or being older brother—that he could slip mindlessly into, while he thought of other things. He could feel the burn of Raphael's eyes for half an instant, could sense the electronic hum of the television set, that blank screen. His little brother, the endless oddball, had stared at blank screens and listened to the fuzzy spots between radio channels since a young age. It was a strange quirk Leo almost liked about him, something impractical along the ordered articles of Raph's pragmatism and stolidity. He crushed tea leaves and a wash of affection came over him, causing him to break his ritual, listening to his heart beat in his temples.

His tea was ready; his feet guided him, as by a different master, and he sat down beside Raphael on the couch silently. Expectantly.

One of them pressed play. Raphael, who normally sat expansively on the couch, went cross-legged, holding a pillow to his plastron. It was the way he'd sat as a child. Leo swallowed and put an arm around his brother's shoulders for a few moments longer than he usually did, pressing his jawbone down to Raph's cheek.

Raphael didn't shrug him off.


End file.
